Much industrial effort has been devoted to developing ground-engaging tools with a reduced cost to wear life ratio. For example, new material compositions and heat treatments have been responsible for lowering the wear rates of cutting edges for earthworking blades and the tips for penetrating teeth. Moreover, various hardfacing materials have been weldingly applied to the exposed wear surfaces of such tools. Unfortunately, these thin hard facings wear away relatively quickly and it is necessary to apply additional layers at considerable expense of labor, time, equipment and the waste of natural resources. However, heretofore it has been difficult to apply such wear resistant material to relatively thin substrates.
The present invention is directed to overcome and improve one or more of the problems as set forth above.